The MySpace Comeback: Social Entertainment

Administrator

Posted on 2.12.2012

Social network MySpace announced it had added one million new members since December 2011 thanks to the introduction of the new Myspace Music player. Sign-ups on the once leading social network, which was acquired by Specific Media in June of last year, have risen to an average of 40,000 new registrations daily.

The greatest asset that MySpace has right now seems to be its catalog of free music. Totaling 42 million songs, that eclipses all of its competitors. With unlimited listening, personalized radio modes, a recommendation engines, and of course an integration with Facebook, MySpace might be able to right their sinking ship. Of course, support from Justin Timberlake sure doesn’t hurt.

"The numbers tell an amazing story of strong momentum and dramatic change for Myspace," said Tim Vanderhook, CEO, Myspace, "and the one million-plus new user accounts we've seen in the last 30 days validates our approach. Myspace is building meaningful social entertainment experience around content, where consumers can share and discover the music they love. Consumers are getting excited about Myspace again - a testament to a great music product."

Now before we get too ahead of ourselves, everything I’ve seen from the data providers doesn’t match the re-growth that MySpace is reporting. Searches on Google continue to trend downward and unique visitors as reported by Compete.com are both pretty dismal. Myspace remains however one of the top 100 destinations on the Internet and that alone warrants some attention – if not respect (for now).

Below is a snapshot of the search volume for the keyword "myspace" from Google Trends. Brand-related terms such as "myspace" do not routinely go down when a site is healthy, active and growing. Keep in mind that this is only the search volume from the past year.